News Comment/COMENTARI AL DIA

Greece Won the Euro/GRÈCIA HA GUANYAT L’EURO

Greece Won the Euro

by Josep C. Verges

Ellas alas! Greeks vote for the euro, but must face nemesis Germany in their quarter final play-off for Euro 2012. Below: The Leveson inquiry revealed that Murdoch has an anti-Europe (and not just anti-euro) agenda which he has successfully deployed on his stable of Prime Ministers -”godfather” Blair, “pajama party” Brown and “country supper” Cameron. But Murdoch’s Sky News promoted Maoist Syriza in Greece to destroy Europe and failed miserably.

Yes Greece did win the Euro once and is now in the quarterfinals for Euro 2012, but it has already won the euro battle after electing a pro-euro party. The international hysteria about the euro once again leaves English and American doomsayers with rather red faces.

What other outcome to the elections could there be with 83% of Greeks wanting the euro? Lost in English translation is the fact that the euro has growth pains, not death throes. Business as usual in America and London is to print money to pay for debts. Wall Street and London may speculate against individual eurozone countries, but that is not such a bad thing, to put an end to political misbehaviour from Greece to Catalonia. Eurozone politicos can no longer finance their vanity projects without having first finidng the money for them, nor can they get into debt and let future generations pay for their reelection. That’s a sign of progress, not of a crisis. Wouldn’t America be better off if Obama had been forced to behave by the markets and not run his huge unsustainable debt? Britain owes as much as Greece but tells others what to do. What is easily forgotten is that market discipline is much better than government largesse. The eurozone will come out of the financial crisis -lest it be forgotten, which started in Britain and in America- with a powerful world currency and better behaved politicians. The eurozone in fact has a financial surplus with the world in contrast to the huge dollar and pound deficits. If any currencies are misaligned they are the dollar and the pound, not the euro. But the Chinese, America’s biggest creditor, don’t speculate against California like Wall Street and London speculate against Spain. The lesson is that Spain, and Catalonia hopefully, are forced to change their politics of government drift while California is stuck in the past, with even a governor from the past. You can be anti-Europe in Australia, Murdoch’s home, or in America, Murdoch’s business address, but the English are fools to be anti-Europe, the world’s biggest market just across the Channel. England, not Europe, is cut off. The pound and the dollar, not the euro, are deficit currencies with unpayable debts. The Greeks understand this and that is why they voted for Europe, not chaos, a Greek word in English too.